Lines Of My Heart
by bbjorgman
Summary: AU in which every time a person falls in love a red tally mark appears on their wrist, the mark turns black if their love is requited and becomes a scar when the one they love dies.


**Oh and just so we're clear – Daryl is the same age as Shawn, so still older than Beth but not _that _old**

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><p>She'd never had a red line with Jimmy. She would always feel guilty about that. She knew that everyone expected it, even Jimmy himself. And she never could hide the apologetic look she had on her face when she would shake her head at Maggie's raised eyebrow, her sister looking pointedly towards her wrist. So she wasn't unsurprised when Jimmy called her telling her that they needed to talk. She sat on her bed, tried to school her features in to something that looked like an apology when Jimmy extended his hand to her and showed her the red line on his wrist and told her that he knew this wasn't gonna happen, if it was meant to be then that line would be black and she would have one to match his. He seemed eerily calm as he hugged her goodbye and left. Beth spent the rest of the night staring at her blank wrist, wondering if she would ever have a mark there at all.<p>

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><p>By the time she met Zach, in college, she already had a scar running horizontally across her wrist. She enjoyed spending time with him and after a few months together, she wasn't at all taken aback when the faint red line appeared on her wrist, running vertically through the scar that she had put there herself after the death of her mother. What did unsettle her was the colour of the line. The more pronounced the line got, the worse she felt about this red line painted across her skin. She knew she would have to mention this to Zach and she felt a real pang of remorse towards Jimmy, knowing now how he must have felt all those years ago. She found herself putting it off and then found that she was glad that she did, because after a few weeks, the line got darker, until eventually it was a dark red colour. She was happier each day that she spent with Zach, especially when she caught a glimpse of the faint pink line on his skin, and she knew then that while he wasn't completely in love with her yet, the fact that his line was there, albeit light, and that hers was growing darker each day, was enough for her for now.<p>

It would have been enough, had Zach not been killed in a hit and run.

After time, the line on her wrist faded, all physical evidence of her love for him and his growing love for her, gone forever.

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><p>Beth rolled her eyes so hard she thought they might actually roll out of her head. No one on earth could make her as exasperated as Daryl Dixon. Her older brother's best friend made it his life mission to purposely annoy Beth and she hated that he succeeded so well at it, giving her stupid nicknames or wiggling his eyebrows at her. She knew that he wasn't like this with everybody, knew that he was pretty closed off with most people, except the Greene family, but she couldn't find it in herself to be thankful for the fact that he showed an interest in her.<p>

The more time she spent around him with his stupid jokes and innuendos, though, she found herself laughing at him, laughing with him.

"Hey, Little Greene, missed me?" He swaggered up to the house (Beth didn't think he even _knew_ that he swaggered, it just seemed to be the way he walk naturally and she hated him for oozing sex appeal) and flashed her a grin as he hopped up the steps on the porch. "Your brother about?"

"You should know, Dixon. Ain't you his boyfriend after all?" She pursed her lips at him, eyebrows raised, trying to hide a smile.

"Aw, come on, Beth." He laughed. "You know I only have eyes for you." He winked at her before throwing open the porch door (Beth didn't care how often he came to their house, didn't he know it was polite to knock?) and Beth hated herself for the warmth she felt in her stomach.

She hated herself again later that day for the blush she felt creeping up her neck when his hand brushed against hers and then again that same weekend when she watched him working with her brother, sleeves cut off, and she found herself admiring his arms, muscles rippling and glistening with sweat.

By the time their regular monthly movie night rolled around, Beth found herself feeling completely uneasy around Daryl Dixon. She felt like a schoolgirl again with a crush, laughing at everything he said (okay, so maybe laughing wasn't right. It was more like flat out giggling) and despite trying to keep her distance from him, she still found herself touching him at every opportunity, even if it was just a brief brush of fingers as she passed him a mug of coffee. So she definitely wished she had made it in to the living room earlier because now Maggie and Glenn were seated together on one armchair, Maggie perched on Glenn's lap, and Shawn had taken the only other arm chair. Which meant there was only one seat left – next to Daryl Dixon on the tiny couch. Daryl looked at Beth then at the spot next to him before wiggling his eyebrows at her. She rolled her eyes (again – good lord, how were they still in her skull?) but as she looked back at him she thought she saw something that looked like nerves flit across his face, just as quickly as it had been there, it was gone and he was giving her a shit-eating grin. Beth threw herself in to the empty sit and tried not to think about the fact that she could feel the warmth from his body pressed up against her side. She realised that he was wearing a long sleeved shirt again, he had been for a couple of weeks now, and she tried to ignore the disappointment she felt at not being able to see his arms again, she found that she missed looking at them (which is exactly why she never mentioned the fact that he had suddenly taken to wearing sleeves because she just _knew_ that he would make some comment about how she wanted to ogle him like a piece of meat.) She absently ran her thumb across the scar on her wrist whilst watching the movie and felt a new ridge there, running horizontally. She froze, knowing exactly what this mark was, knowing exactly what it meant. She was in love with Daryl Dixon. She glanced over at him and found him looking at her before he quickly averted his gaze back to the television. Beth stood up quickly, making everyone else jump, and mumbled something about not feeling well before she made her way up to her room. She didn't look at her wrist as she was getting ready for bed, couldn't bring herself to see the red line that meant she loved someone who didn't love her back.

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><p>It was two days later when she forced herself to look at the tally on her wrist and it wasn't what she was expecting to see. The line was black. Her eyes widened as she traced it with her index finger and wondered if Daryl had seen his yet. (If she were willing to ask him, she'd probably make some joke about how he wouldn't even notice because his skin is so covered in grease all the time, he'd probably just think it was another bit of dirt.) She stared at the line and watched as it turned from black to red before turning black again and she knew then, knew that he had seen it, that he was trying to convince himself that it wasn't love he felt for her, that this didn't mean what it was supposed to. She smiled to herself. Stupid, indecisive, beautiful man. She supposed this explained the long sleeved shirts though.<p>

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><p>She waited on the porch, knew that he would be coming to see Shawn today. She knew the moment he had spotted her, watched as his truck slowed down, crawling towards the house, almost as if he was trying to figure out if it was too late to turn around. He pulled up in front of the house but made no move to leave his truck. Beth sighed, shaking her head affectionately, and made her way down to him. He climbed out of his truck slowly looking anywhere but at her, still wearing those stupid long sleeves, and it dawned on her then that he might not have even looked at it since it had changed colour. Probably hadn't, her stubborn man. She stood in front of, placing her hands on his shoulders to stop him from moving, before waving her wrist in front of his face. His eyes widened when caught sight of her black line and he caught her hand in his, running his thumb over the line before reaching to pull his sleeve up. He held her wrist next to his, flicking his eyes back and forth between their respective marks, and then looked back up at her, hopefulness in his eyes.<p>

"'S black." His voice was almost a whisper and Beth wanted to smile at the disbelief in his voice.

"Yeah," she smiled then, "But it won't be for long if you keep trying to pretend you don't feel this, that you don't know what this is. It's been changing colour all morning."

"What is this, Beth?" His voice sounded steady but Beth knew that he was still trying to process the fact that _her line was black too, _ but his was smiling, she knew that he was amused that his indecisiveness had changed the mark on her wrist from black to red numerous times this morning.

"It's us. Me and you. Think you can handle that?"She looked up at him, moved her arms to wind around his neck and his hands went automatically to his waist like they had done this a thousand times before. Daryl smiled as he pulled her closer to him, lowering his head to hers.

"I'm sure I'll learn to cope," he told her before his lips met hers.


End file.
